I spent the summer cuddling Mercedes every chance I got, but sadly I had to go to college in September.

She went to live with my Dad while I was gone. Only 'till I could move off-campus, of course! Over winter break we discovered www.cavycages.com and made her a 2x4 all for herself. I hear she only ran around when no one was moving.

So, second semester I decided I could not take the dorm crap any longer and moved off campus. I was lonely, so I decided to get another piggie to keep me company while I was in California. At that point, I had already decided to transfer back to Massachusetts in the fall.

So, I looked around and found Chloe. She was part of an accidental litter of piggies. (You know, the usual, oops we put a boy in with the girls, fiasco.) I drove from Redlands all the way down to San Diego to pick her up.

She was just a wee little thing:

I learned very quickly that peruvian fur grows quite fast! Chloe became my grooming experiment. She was victim to many a bad 'do, I admit. Chloe kept me company and became very tame very quickly. One of her favorite things was to nap on my chest underneath my sweatshirt:

In May it was time for me to go back home to Massachusetts. My parents had enough frequent flier miles to fly us home first class. To this day, I don't know of any other guinea pig who has done it! I even had to get a 'health certificate' so I could fly with Chloe. The vet I took her to found it very amusing.

When I got back to my parent's house I introduced Chloe and Mercedes. They had a 2x4 C&C but still managed to annoy each other a lot. I hoped it would work itself out. Mercedes had become quite the little diva piggie after being alone for the first nine months of her life. She did not want to share!

The summer passed pretty uneventfully. By the fall, it was clear Chloe and Mercedes were just not getting along. Chloe was just too mischevious for Mercedes' taste. By October, I had been on GL seven months, so I knew about guinea pig rescues and had learned a lot about behavior, etc. I looked around, found Amiable Animals Rescue, aaaaand....

Well I contacted Amy (LER) and she drove all the way from Salem, NY to Boston so we could try out some of her adoptable pigs with Chloe. I initially was only planning on getting Chloe a friend and just making Mercedes a singleton pig.

However, I specifically asked Amy to bring two pigs that had caught my eye:

Hope

and Georgia

Here is an excerpt from Hope's adoption page: "Hope was transferred from the Concord, NH SPCA. Hope is a feisty little Abyssinian girl! Her cute face is bound to have you talking baby talk. While Hope is still a baby herself, she came to rescue pregnant already due to not being separated from males soon enough." She had two boys on Sept 10, Pumpkin and Acorn. I am happy to say the have both since been adopted.

Here's an excerpt from Georgia's adoption page: "This guinea pig is one of 24 that were taken from a barn where many guinea pigs were allowed to run freely. Many are battle scared from being forced to live in close proximity to one another and fight for food and space." She is now my biggest lap pig and the only one who falls asleep in while I'm holding her.

Suffce to say I adopted them both. Mercedes actually seemed to tolerate Hope, and Chloe and Georgia got along well. A few weeks later Chloe's fur magically seemed to stop growing. That's when I discovered Georgia's secret... she is a barberer! Dun dun duuuuun.

Of course, Mercedes and Hope had their scuffles. At one point Mercedes had to go on meds for a possible UTI and I put a grid divider in the cage. They would sleep on either side of the divider, right next to each other. A week later when I took it out, they got along much much better. I suppose a little time apart was all they needed.

-----------------------

I'm sorry to say the next installment will be quite sad. I think it's only fair to warn everyone in advance. :(